Daniel thought the worst part of moving after his divorce would be the loneliness.
He was wrong.

Across the hall lived Mr. Hale — pale, polite, always smiling… and never blinking.
Not once. Not ever.

For weeks Daniel tried to ignore it, until the night he found a black notebook outside his door.
Inside were detailed notes about his sleep, his movements, even the things he whispered in his dreams — written before he had moved in.

Then came the camera in his smoke detector.
Then the file “HALE.EXE” that appeared on his laptop.
Then the live image of Hale’s unblinking eye staring back at him, with Daniel’s room reflected inside it.

The last message from the file said:

“Last chance to stay inside.”

That was where the story left off.

Now here is the ending.

---

THE REVEAL — WHAT HALE REALLY IS

Daniel decided he wasn’t running anymore.

He grabbed a hammer from the kitchen drawer and opened his apartment door.
The hallway was completely silent.
Hale’s door across the hall was slightly open.

Daniel pushed it gently.

The apartment inside was empty — no furniture, no dishes, no clothes.
Just one thing:

A chair in the center of the room facing a wall full of screens.

Every screen showed a live camera feed from somewhere in the building.

And in the middle of them all…
Daniel suddenly saw himself standing in Hale’s doorway, looking at the screens.

A voice behind him whispered:

“Finally. You’re ready.”

Daniel spun around.

Hale was standing so close their noses almost touched.

And now Daniel understood why he never blinked.

Hale’s eyes weren’t eyes.

They were lenses.

Behind them, small mechanical iris blades clicked softly as they adjusted focus.

Hale wasn’t human — not anymore.

His skin was real. His voice was real. But his eyes… his vision… his awareness…

All artificial.

Hale spoke calmly:

“You were chosen because you notice things.
Most people don’t.
Most people look away.”

Daniel stepped back, shaking.

“What do you want from me?”

Hale smiled — the only human expression on his face.

“To replace me.”

The screens on the wall flickered.

One by one, they changed to show Daniel’s face — sleeping, eating, walking, thinking.

“Why me?” Daniel whispered.

Hale pointed at the notebook.

“You think those were observations?
They were evaluations.”

Daniel’s laptop in his apartment beeped.
A new file appeared automatically, without anyone touching the keyboard.

DANIEL.EXE

Hale leaned forward and whispered:

“It begins when you stop blinking.”

---

THE FINAL TWIST

Daniel ran out of the apartment, down the stairs, out of the building.

He didn’t go back home.
He didn’t sleep.
He didn’t blink.

He couldn’t.

Because now, every time he tried to close his eyes, even for a fraction of a second…

He saw a burst of images:
hallways, apartments, faces, lives…

A thousand live camera feeds flashing behind his eyelids.

And they were all waiting for him.

Waiting for their new watcher.

That was how Daniel learned the truth:

Hale wasn’t a person being watched.
He was the watcher.
And now Daniel was chosen to continue the work.

The last line of the story was found in Daniel’s notebook two days later:

“Subject 241 has stopped blinking.”

---

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